The Audition - A short story

Chapter
eighteen in which poetry and nude photographs have a lot to do with events to
come

‘I’m
bored,’ Veronika announced.

We
were at Mama’s, waiting for something to happen.

‘The
thing is we never do anything,’ Veronika frowned, looking at Vendy as if it was
her fault.

Vendula
said nothing; you could never say the right thing no matter what you came up
with when Veronika felt like this. Besides, Vendula hardly ever felt bored. Come to jazz ballet with me, she had
suggested to Veronika a couple of times before she figured out this wasn’t
really about boredom. Let’s go to the
library, Vendula said the third time. Veronika didn’t go.

Empty, it said
on page one. There was nothing else there so Vendula turned over to page two.

Empty
I feel and empty I do,

Empty
is such an empty word.

I
wake up and then I go to bed;

The
thing is, there’s nothing more than that.

I
keeled over but Vendula managed to look pleasantly surprised.

‘That
is so you, Veronika,’ she smiled appreciatively.

‘I
know,’ Veronika smiled back, expecting accolades.

Vendula
closed the diary.

‘There’s
more!’ Veronika rushed to say, prompting Vendula to read on.

Page
three. Yearn, it said and that was
all so Vendula turned to page four.

Nourish
me and I will flower,

Starve
me and I will die.

I
yearn to fill my soul with life,

I
yearn, but who can give me more?

Continuing
to smile appreciatively, Vendula turned to page five. Nothing, I mean there was
nothing on it so Vendula turned to page six. It too was empty.

‘That’s
it then,’ Vendula murmured but it was the wrong thing to say.

‘Well,
you can’t just fill the whole book at once, can you?’ Veronika snapped,
disappointed at Vendula’s lukewarm response. She snatched the diary from her.

‘It
takes time to think of what you want to say, and then you’ve got to find just the right way to express your
feelings,’ Veronika went on hurriedly explaining and looking very cross.

Feeling
Veronika’s pain, Vendula was anxious to put things right.

‘Of
course,’ Vendula nodded, ‘how true.’

‘So,
what do you think of it?’ Veronika enquired, glaring at the frantically nodding
Vendula.

Panicking
because she didn’t know what to say, Vendula decided to stall for time.

‘It’s
very you,’ she said, smiling and nodding.

Veronika
continued to glare. ‘You already said that.’

‘Right,’
Vendula smiled. She took a deep breath. She was deliberating whether she had
the courage to say anything remotely resembling the truth, but was saved by the
timely arrival of Marcela who had meanwhile appeared at the door. Vendula waved
to her.

‘It’s
very good,’ Vendula said to Veronika who was still glowering.

Veronika
shrugged. ‘It needs more life.’

‘What
does?’ asked Marcela, arriving at the table. She plopped down next to Veronika.

‘My
life needs more life,’ Veronika replied.

Marcela laughed.

‘I
know just the thing,’ she tapped her nose knowingly but Veronika, thinking she
was talking about sex, shook her head.

‘Not
that,’ Marcela smiled and spat her
bubble gum onto a coaster. The bubble gum, Vendula noticed, was one of those
nice-smelling, American bubble gums, you know, the really big ones. This one
smelled like an orange. Vendula wondered how come Marcela was able to get it
and where. Meanwhile Marcela lit up a smoke.

‘What
do you mean, you know just the thing?’ Veronika asked. ‘What is it?’

Suddenly, Marcela looked serious. She reached
into her bag and pulled out an envelope.

‘If
I show you,’ she said, ‘you’ve got to promise to keep it a secret.’

The
girls swore not to tell anyone.

‘It’s
this,’ Marcela took out a stack of photographs and placed them face down onto
the table.

The
girls were instantly intrigued. The photograph showed Marcela coming out of a
shower stall. She was naked. Dripping wet, she smiled happily at the camera.
Another picture showed her reaching for a towel, and another showed her
brushing her beautiful red hair. The rest of the pictures showed Marcela in all
sorts of different poses: putting on make-up, slipping on her panties and a
bra, then fastening a pink bow on her ponytail, and finally some shots of her
on a rug in somebody’s living room.

‘Why
do you do this?’ Veronika asked when all the pictures had been looked at.

‘Of
course, I get paid for it.’ Marcela explained. ‘Why else would I do this?’

‘For
fun?’

‘Well,’
Marcela sighed, ‘it - is - fun - but
- it - is - like - a - job - at - the - same - time - you - see?’

She
was now speaking in a slow, deliberate way, using the tone of voice one
reserves for those less fortunate than themselves. Vendula felt a flicker of
irritation.

‘The
thing is,’ Veronika said and Vendula felt her temples beginning to pulse, ‘one
has to know how to handle this sort of thing to one’s advantage.’

‘Right
on the money,’ Marcela agreed, saying that you never knew where this sort of
thing could lead you.

‘Precisely,’
Veronika said and banged her fist on the table for emphasis. The girls were
nodding at each other as if their lives depended on it, then Veronika started
telling everyone how her brother knew a girl who used to do modelling like this
and now she is on stage in Prague.

‘It
won’t be long till she lands a movie,’ Veronika said, looking meaningfully at
Marcela who nodded vigorously.

Of
course, Marcela agreed, it was all
valuable acting experience.

‘Well,
how much do you get?’ Veronika asked then.

Marcela
told them. Veronika pursed her lips to whistle. Nothing came out, of course;
she didn’t know how to whistle.

‘What
do you do with all that money?’ Vendula asked when they were done digesting.

Veronika
turned to Vendula and raised her eyebrows as if to say: should we? Could we?

To
be perfectly honest, I doubted Vendula would have the nerve. It appeared
everyone else shared my opinion; the girls accepted the vague gesture Vendula
made with a ready nod.

Veronika,
on the other hand, took a different view.

‘I’d
like to have a look,’ Veronika announced, smiling triumphantly at Vendula who
got a feeling that we were in for a new experience. I did too.After all, I
pointed out to Vendy, Veronika, having so eloquently
yearnedfor self-expression,
would be a fool to pass up this chance.

Meanwhile,
Veronika kept smiling at Vendula. She really wanted to know what Vendula
thought of the idea. But Vendula could only shrug; she simply couldn’t think of
anything to say. Veronika, however, was not discouraged. She promised Marcela
she’d seriously think about
auditioning.

Marcela
was pleased. There was no rush to make a decision, she declared, but now she had to rush because she had an
appointment. She stubbed her cigarette on the coaster and left.

Chapter
nineteen in which things are about to spiral out of control when Veronika and
Alice decide to go to a modelling audition

I know the
girls promised but you just can’t keep that sort of thing to yourself.

‘It’s
a good career move,’ Veronika told
everyone the next day at school. At once we had a split camp. There were some
who were all for it, and there were others who cautioned against it.

‘You’ve
gotta have a small ass to do this kind of modelling,’ Gouda informed Alice when
Alice declared the proposition sound, claiming there was good money to be made.

Alice
blushed and for once didn’t know what to say. Simple quickly jumped to her
defence, proceeding to tell us about some pretty spicy photographs she’d once seen, which featured large ladies.

‘They
were as big as Alice,’ Simple alleged. Alice went as red as beetroot and the
room went quiet, with everyone looking at her. The poor girl squirmed under the
collective gaze and began to perspire noticeably.

‘I
wasn’t talking about you,’ Gouda murmured to Alice, regretting he ever said
anything in the first place.

‘Sure,
you weren’t!’ Alice shouted shakily, looking as if she were going to cry. ‘You all think I’m fat!’

An
awkward pause followed during which Vendula established that she definitely
thought Alice was fat and wondered if everyone felt the same. Looking around,
we decided it was highly likely. The fun we’ve had joking about the nonexistent
out-of-town boyfriend and the cracks about her weight, well, what can I tell
you? That she deserved it? Probably not. Did she ask for it? In a way. What
goes around, comes around. It’s true. A bit of kindness goes a long way. Alice,
however, was not thinking along those lines just then. Giving everyone the
finger, she stormed off to the loo.

It
panned out just as we thought. Veronika called in the afternoon just as Vendy
was putting on her boots to go to the library.

‘I’m
gonna do it,’ Veronika announced.

‘Why?’
Vendula asked and took off her coat; this was going to be a long session.

‘Have
you thought this through?’ Vendula’s words hung in the air like wet laundry. It
was a useless question and Vendula could not believe she was actually saying
this; it was the sort of thing Mother would say.

Veronika
sighed. ‘You sound like my mother.’

‘You’ve
told her?’ Vendula was flabbergasted.

‘No,
stupid, I haven’t told her,’ Veronika replied. ‘She’d die.’

She
would. We could just see Mrs A. writhing on the tiles in their kitchen.

‘When
are you going to do it?’ Vendula asked.

‘Over
the weekend, I thiiiink,’ Veronika
didn’t sound too sure.

Vendula
took it as an encouraging sign; maybe Veronika had doubts, and there was time
to stop her.

‘If
you have any doubts,’ Vendula started
but Veronika cut her off.

‘No,
I don’t,’ she snapped. ‘The thing is Marcela has to find out about the studio.
If it’s available this weekend and things like that.’

That
was the thing. The conversation continued along this track with Veronika having
a lot more to say about the modelling business and her long-term prospects in
it. Money, fame, opportunities. Bla, bla, bla. Listening to her tirade, Vendula
didn’t know how to respond. Right, of
course, and aha, was all she
could come up with. Veronika didn’t care. She had more news.

‘Alice
is coming along,’ Veronika announced triumphantly. ‘She wants to have a look.’

‘Just
a look?’

‘Well,
of course, she’s interested,’ Veronika replied, barely able to stifle a laugh.
‘But she is a bit cautious because she’s so fat.’

‘Did
she say that?’ Vendula asked, not quite believing Alice would ever admit to it.
She’d never say a thing like that.

Oddly,
for someone of her generous size, Alice would often refer to people only slightly larger than herself as obscene and how could anyone get like that? No, Alice, who was this close to drawstring pants, was not
fat, Alice was curvy. One time Alice
admitted to being solid but, in all honesty, there was nothing solid about
Alice. She was as soft as a pillow.

‘No,
of course she didn’t say that,’Veronika
snorted impatiently. ‘She said she wanted to help, you know, with the make-up
and the clothes and such.

‘Clothes?’
I asked. ‘What clothes?’ I was listening to Veronika’s every word and let me
tell you, it was time well spent.

‘Did
you talk to Marcela about it?’ Vendula asked, thinking Marcela might have had
other ideas about Alice joining in.

‘Yes,
we talked about it,’ Veronika replied. ‘She said it was okay. In fact, she was
all for it. It seems they’re always looking for new talent, all shapes and
sizes.’

Apparently, Alice was keen to try her luck,
Veronika told us and then announced that she was going to Marcela’s to try on
some lingerie and shoes.

‘You’ve
got to wear high heels,’ Veronika said just before she hung up. ‘That’s a
rule.’

A rule? I nearly
choked. I’ll bet there are other rules,
I nudged Vendy who tried to shush me because she could tell disgusting things
were going to be mentioned.

‘Remember
the photo we found hidden under Pavel’s mattress?’ I nudged her.

Vendula
grimaced; it was hardly a thing one could forget.

‘It
was a greeting card of some kind,’ I recalled, ‘a German greeting card. We
didn’t know what it said, remember?’

Vendula
nodded. She remembered it very well. There wasn’t much to look at on the front
page, just a very long German word printed in red ink on thick glossy paper but
when you opened it up, well there she was. The biggest and the most naked
person you could imagine. We recalled thinking the woman looked like a double
cone vanilla ice-cream that had begun to drip. Soft and mushy, her puckered
body had collapsed in the space between her knees and her ankles and everything
was just folded over down there. The girl had quite a tiny head and huge red
lips painted over her real mouth and cheeks, and even though she was smiling,
she looked really desperate, like a sad clown.

Careful
not to touch it, Vendula had stared at the card as if it were a leper. How
could anyone do this? She had asked me and I could only shrug. As gently as I
could, I tried to explain that in real life people often did things they never
even dreamt of doing. Circumstances, you know, sometimes led you to do something
against your better judgment, I told her. This made Vendula feel sad.

‘I
don’t want to see anything like that ever again,’ Vendula said now and we ended
the conversation.

Chapter
twenty in which a lot of brandy is drunk when the idea of factory workers’
noble struggle to achieve the five-year production plan is deemed to be useless
proletarian drivel

The very
next day Veronika called. She wanted to meet us at the Water Loo.

The
pub was quiet; it was that time of the afternoon. The weather was balmy. A
clear day of lazy, pale sun and a slight breeze coming through the open
windows; really, very pleasant. We ordered a lemonade for Vendy and a beer for
Veronika, and salty cheese to go with it.

Veronika
plunged right in. ‘I didn’t do it.’

Vendula
sighed with relief. She’d had a feeling Veronika wouldn’t go through with it.
Maybe the shower pictures, we could see her posing for those but when we
pictured her lying on that rug… we knew Veronika
couldn’t, wouldn’t do that.

‘I
just couldn’t do it, you know,’ Veronika sighed. ‘I’ve realized that my poetry
is already in here,’ she tapped her forehead. ‘I don’t need to do that sort of
thing to express myself, you know.’

‘No,
you don’t,’ Vendula echoed helpfully. ‘You either got it or you don’t. Taking
your clothes off won’t help either way.’

Veronika
couldn’t agree more.

Definitely,
one didn’t have to stoop to that sort of thing to get anywhere and besides, what could it possibly lead to?

‘Whoring
maybe,’ she smirked knowingly. ‘That’s about it.’

The
girls sat quietly contemplating the whoring Veronika seems to have so narrowly
escaped until Vendy asked Veronika about the money she was letting go.

Pausing
meaningfully, Veronika looked to Vendula to finish the thought. When this was
not forthcoming, Veronika did it for her.

‘The
root of all evil,’ she said after about five minutes of gaping expectantly at
Vendula who gaped back with no expectation at all, thinking the question
rhetorical.

Veronika
was not discouraged by Vendula’s silence. Expanding upon the theme, Veronika
announced that in order to achieve
any-thing, one had to do without.

‘It
is good for the soul to do without,’ Veronika orated, signaling a waiter to
order another jug of Pilsner and more salty cheese.

‘What
about Alice?’ I wanted to know.

‘Oh,
that loser?’ Veronika shrugged. ‘She went for it.’

A
feeling best described as nausea swept over Vendula. She asked for more
details. It turned out that Veronika didn’t really know if Alice ‘went for it’
because she left before anything happened, straight after her interview which
she’d had first while Alice was asked to wait in the kitchen.

‘There
was a kitchen?’ Vendula was gobsmacked. The last thing she would have expected
a photographic studio to have was a kitchen.

‘Yeah,’
Veronika laughed, ‘the studio is just somebody’s flat.’

The
somebody turned out to be Raphael and
Klaus, two middle-aged men who had set up the whole thing from their living room.
It was a small enterprise, with just the two of them taking care of everything,
from talentscouting through to distribution. Apparently, Veronika was told,
they were very hands-on in all aspects of the business so it came as no
surprise that they were to be the photographers at this audition.

To
begin with, Raphael and Klaus showed her some pictures of other girls who,
according to Veronika, had no star aura about them and the pictures themselves
were of such poor quality, out of focus or too much in focus or just plain
ugly, that she began to have doubts whether this was something one ought to get
involved with because, you know, it didn’t look like the sort of thing you
could show anyone to get into the movies. Barely five minutes into the
interview the photographers asked Veronika to take her clothes off so they
could take some Polaroids. This request freaked her out straight away,
especially as one of the men started to take his shirt off to make her feel comfortable. When she refused, they put
their camera away and instead talked long and hard about the realities of
showbusiness which, they were at pains to point out, had nothing but trust and
friendly relations at its very core.

‘Was
Marcela there?’ Vendula wanted to know. We were trying to picture it; the two
old clowns pouring wine and Veronika sitting there, getting all stiff.

Veronika
nodded. ‘She was mixing drinks in the kitchen.’

Good Lord,
we laughed. That’s so Marcela.

‘She
didn’t think it odd when the guy took his shirt off?’

‘No,
she was very much at ease about it,’ Veronika replied. ‘In fact, she sat down
on the arm of his chair and gave him a hug.’

Imagining
it, Vendula gagged. According to Veronika, both men were hideous. Raphael was a
greasy, weedy-looking, lisping fellow with a lazy eye and only about six teeth,
and Klaus, the one who took his shirt off, was fat, balding and smelled like
wet weather. ‘He had black hairs all over his back,’ Veronika cringed,
pretending to vomit at the memory of it.

‘I’ll
bet you just wanted to leave, right?’ Vendula asked, thinking that would have
been it for her. We shuddered. You
could just see it, couldn’t you? Marcela snuggling up to Mr Gross and Veronika
retching at the sight of it.

Of
course, Veronika told them she didn’t think it would work out, and she’d better
be on her way. It was then that Mr Toothless said what’th the rush? No need to be hathty,
and no need to take any picturethjutht yet.

‘Surely,
you didn’t stay?’ thinking she might have, Vendula asked just to be sure.

Veronika
shrugged. ‘I couldn’t just leave. Marcela served brandy.’

‘In
a balloon glass?’

‘Of
course.’

Vendula
nodded. Of course, brandy in a balloon glass.
Veronika’s favourite. Not a good time to leave.

After
the brandy, things got better.In an avuncular fashion, Raphael insisted that
Veronika was under no obligation to accept the job.

‘Let’th
not talk buthineth,’ Raphael beamed at the bookcase. ‘We’re jutht going to have
a little drink together, no thtringth attached. By the way, Marcela dearetht,
where ith that other nithe young lady?’

Marcela
went to the kitchen to fetch Alice and when they came back, Mr Gross had his
shirt back on.

‘Klaus
at your service,’ he purred at Alice,
kissing her hand. Raphael then offered them some cigarettes, Marlboros.

The
party got under way. Apparently, Alice felt very much at home because she
enquired about their record collection, looking for something to play. Klaus
was only too happy to show her.

Meanwhile
Raphael started up a different sort of conversation.

‘Tho,’
he grinned at the space southeast of the bookcase where he imagined Veronika
was sitting at the end of the sofa. ‘Marcela tellth me you write poetry.’

Veronika
shrugged, there wasn’t much she’d written and she’d rather not talk about it.
Privately she thought the man was a fool; it was inconceivable that she would
discuss her work with the likes of him.

‘So,
he shows me the money. I mean, I literally walked over and looked in that
fucking drawer and then I go: This is my point exactly. You’re in it for the
money.’

We nodded. Did
he really think he could pull the wool over her eyes?

‘So
he goes: No, you’ve got it all wrong. Thith ith our thavingth for the movie
Klauth and I are going to make. It cothtth a lot of money to make a film, you
thee.’

‘So
I go: Why don’t you just apply for a grant? And he laughs and says that grants
are for imbethileth.

‘You
gotta have a real thtory,’ he says, ‘not thome proletarian drivel about factory
workerth’ thruggle to achieve the five-year production plan.’

Veronika
shrugged. ‘You understand I had to agree with him on this point.’

We
nodded; of course, we’d all had a gutful
of that sort of thing.

‘So
then he goes: I, for one, am not going to compromithe my artithtic integrity.
And he’s looking at me as if I would.’

Veronika’s
jaw dropped expectantly.

Tapping
her forehead, Vendula hung there with her. Imagine!

Eventually
the girls grew tired of tapping so Veronika went on: ‘I go: So what’s your
story about? And he goes: Well, the general idea ith to give people thomething
they would really enjoy, thomething different but at the thame time thomething
everyone can relate to.’

Veronika
dropped jaw again but Vendula didn’t feel like tapping her head any more so she
quickly said so far so good and
Veronika laughed, saying that’s what she said.

At
this Raphael got all excited and said that of
courthe, at this stage he couldn’t reveal much to her because it was ahead
of schedule, and really, you had to guard your ideas because people were not
above anything these days but the one thing he could tell her for sure was that
they were going to start casting soon. In fact, there was a part in it that
would suit Veronika to a tee; he had felt her charisma as soon as she had
walked in the room, but of course, it was entirely up to her whether she wanted
to audition or not. Obviously, they would have to know how photogenic she was
because it is important that you present well on camera.

‘You’ll be playing the romantic lead, you
thee,’ concluding his sales pitch, Raphael had bowed to the bureau. Veronika
then said: ‘Aha! There’ll be nudity then,’ to which, Raphael, all casual and
unconcerned like, responded with: ‘Of courthe, you gotta give people what they
want.’

Thinking
about it, I found myself nodding. Of
courthe, what elthe ith there?

‘You-gotta-give-people-what-they-want,’
Veronika repeated slowly. ‘That’s when I realized it was all a big con to get
me to pose nude.’

Vendula
breathed a sigh of relief. Yes. A big
con.

‘Sooo,’
Vendula breathed, ‘that’s when you left.’

‘No,
I had another brandy.’

We
laughed; that’s so Veronika. That and her saying bureau. Everyone else we knew would have said a chest of drawers
but not Veronika. She’d have to say bureau.

Then
Klaus turned it on for Alice. Oozing charm like a gypsy at the fairground,
Klaus told Alice that there was something special about her, insisting that if
you looked at her from a certain angle there was a strong resemblance to Bridget Bardot in her younger days,
naturally, (Naturally! we roared) and
he was dead certain it would show up on film.

‘She
has a big future, this young lady does,’ Klaus oozed, snapping a Polaroid of
the flushed Alice who sat there casting glances like an Indian bride.

‘I
should think so but I left after the third brandy so I’m not really sure.’

We
thought about it. Okay, it was up to
Alice but Veronika should have talked her out of it. Or at least tried to.

‘Before
you say it,’ Veronika raised a finger when Vendula remained thoughtful, ‘I did try to talk her out of it.’

Aha.

‘She
wouldn’t hear of it. Said she was old enough to know what she was doing and
just because I had no talent (Vendula
gasped: No, she wouldn’t dare! but Veronika nodded to indicate just how low
Alice had sunk), I had no right to hinder her career.’

Veronika
sighed. ‘I tried to call her this morning but she wasn’t there. Aunt Babsie
told me she went to Marcela’s to work on an art’s project for school.’

Hearing
this, Vendula had to laugh. There were no art classes at our college.

‘And
then you called Marcela,’ Vendula confirmed.

‘There
was no one home,’ Veronika replied. ‘So that’s that.’

Right.
That’s that.

###

The short
story The Audition is an excerpt
from the autobiographical novel Cabbage,
Strudel and Trams (Part 1: Czechoslovakia) available to download from
Smashwords, Amazon and other online stores.

Cabbage,
Strudel & Trams tells the story of a young girl’s turbulent journey from
childhood to adulthood, of adolescence begun behind the Iron Curtain, continued
in a West German refugee camp and coming to a glorious end in the land Down
Under. Narrated by Franta, an imaginary friend inhabiting the inner world of
our young heroine Vendula, this satirical coming-of-age tale depicts the trials
and tribulations of an ordinary Czech family living in a small mining town in
communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s, their escape to West Germany and
their resettlement in Australia.

The
story begins when the combined household of Zhvuk & Dribbler is thrown into
chaos by the untimely defection of Uncle Stan to West Germany. With nothing but
their damaged political profile to lose, the family decides to eventually
follow in Uncle Stan’s footsteps but not before puberty, free enterprise,
unrequited love and things that only happen to other people shred our young heroine’s
heart. With charm, poise and a little grace, Franta navigates Vendula through
the pitfalls of her teenage years, guiding her to discover her own identity. As
shenanigans gather momentum, Franta’s humorous insights into Vendula’s loopy
family: the assertive mother, the henpecked father, the enterprising granddad,
the blissful grandma, the dissenting uncle and his circle of ‘freedom fighting’
friends build a picture of the life of ordinary folk surviving the oppressive
communist regime.

Well,
even straw will eventually break the camel’s back. Following a trip to the
almighty Soviet “Onion” where rows of empty shop windows reveal the future all
too clearly, the family escapes to West Germany. Unexpectedly, the refugee
camp, a colourless shapeless blur on the edge of a dark, dark forest where only
goblins live, is a “happy” kind of place in which tobacco chewing, nose
picking, throat clearing, the occasional riot, and plentiful and uninhibited
sexual exploits are the order of the day. Of course, life is not all beer and
crackers for our heroes; having carved out some sort of an existence in the
camp, new challenges arise when the family arrives in Australia.

Other
titles by Ivana Hrubá are available to download on Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Sony, Apple and other online stores.

The Audition by Ivana Hruba. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied or used in any form or manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
in reviews and critical articles.

Disclaimer:
This
is a work of fiction. All events described herein are imaginary, including
settings and characters. Any similarity to real persons, entities, or companies
is purely coincidental and not intended to represent real living persons. Real
brand names, company names, names of public personalities or real people may be
employed for credibility because they are part of our culture and everyday
lives. Regardless of context, their use is meant neither as endorsement nor
criticism: such names are used fictitiously without intent to describe their
actual conduct or value. All other names, products or brands are inventions of
the author’s imagination. The author and the publisher of this work, its
distributors, retailers, wholesalers and assigns disclaims any liability or
responsibility for how this work is interpreted by its readers. The author and
the publisher assume no responsibility for factual errors, inaccuracies, or
omissions.

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Short Fiction: The English Patient, Dr Zhivago and the Purposeful Stride, and Other Stories

A collection of amusing short stories about the human condition revealing the absurdity of our existence.

The Dead Husbands Club

Absolutely Fabulous meets Desperate Housewives in this spirited tale of two merry widows whose talent for discreetly solving other people’s problems earns them a devoted fan base and a prosperous living.

Cabbage, Strudel and Trams (Part 1: Czechoslovakia)

An almost biographical and definitely riotous tale of adolescence begun behind the Iron Curtain, continued in a West German refugee camp and coming to a glorious end in the land Down Under.

Cabbage, Strudel and Trams (Part 2: West Germany)

As expected, good times were had by all in the refugee camp...

Cabbage, Strudel and Trams (Part 3: Australia)

All good things must come to an end...

A Decent Ransom

A Story of a Kidnapping Gone Right

Ether

A novella exploring the complex, multifaceted nature of human love through three interconnecting stories of love, loss and betrayal.

Planet of Dreams: Go West

Shackled to a dangerous man, a young boy fights for survival in the desert.

Ivana Hruba

Betraying not a glimmer of thought in her deep-set wandering eyes, the author treads a fine line between profound stupidity and misunderstood genius…